Puppet MastersS


Airplane

Hunter Biden firm sought Irish government investments while Biden was VP, raising questions about Ireland trip

Jessica Chasmar, Cameron Cawthorne
Fox News
Thu, 13 Apr 2023 03:01 UTC
boarding plane
© Patrick Semansky/APPresident Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Valerie Biden board Air Force One
April 11, 2023 • Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
President Biden's embattled son was invited to accompany his dad and aunt to Ireland this week, despite continued scrutiny over the Biden family's foreign business dealings and dual investigations.

In 2011, Hunter's partners at his now-defunct investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners discussed making contacts to expand their energy investments in various state-owned investment funds, including in China, Ireland, Oman and Qatar, according to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital.

On March 8, 2011, Eric Schwerin, the firm's former president, sent Hunter and then-CEO Devon Archer an email containing the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute's (SWFI) current list of the top sovereign wealth fund[s], which are state owned, and their rankings at the time.

"Let's discuss today what else we can be doing to connect with these groups," Archer responded, adding that Rosemont Seneca was "already working" with several funds on the list, including two in China.

Comment: Best guess: We don't know half of it!

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Footprints

Ukraine's EU backers skeptical of counteroffensive - Bloomberg


RT
Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:00 UTC
Ukraine soldiers
© AP/LibkosSoldiers of the Ukrainian 3rd Army Assault Brigade • Special Operations Forces (SSO) "Azov"
Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine • Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023
The news outlet claims hopes have been dampened, with a 30 km (20 mile) advance now seen as a realistic objective...

Some EU nations supporting Ukraine have started to doubt whether Kiev will be able to recapture large swathes of territory this year, Bloomberg has reported. Even a modest advance would likely result in heavy casualties among Ukrainian personnel and require considerable amounts of ammunition and hardware, the outlet claimed, citing anonymous EU officials.

In an article on Friday, Bloomberg alleged that the high hopes prevalent among Ukraine's backers late last year, after Kiev's troops managed to regain a large area, have now mostly dissipated. Fewer people in Western capitals are counting on a decisive push in 2023, with the fighting expected to continue well into next year.

The news agency quoted unnamed European officials "involved in efforts to support Ukraine's military" as predicting that a realistic goal for Kiev would be a 30 km (20 mile) advance. This, if successful, should set the stage for a deeper counteroffensive in 2024, the sources predicted.

Comment: If the situation for Ukraine is reportedly this bad, the reality is much worse.

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Mr. Potato

Seriously? Congressman Jerry Nadler says rising NYC crime 'only an illusion'

Jon Levine
New York Post
Mon, 17 Apr 2023 19:13 UTC
Manhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler
© Bloomberg via Getty ImagesManhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler
The Judiciary Committee's top Democrat wants everyone to know that surging Big Apple crime is only an illusion manufactured by the party's political enemies.

Manhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler said he will come out swinging in defense of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg during the panel's Monday hearing in New York.

The hearing will focus on the victims of Bragg's soft-on-crime policies.

Comment: Things are so bad in NYC that: Migrants ditch 'crime-ridden' NYC for Canada using taxpayer-funded bus tickets

Meanwhile Republicans are complaining because the supposedly neutral C-SPAN broadcaster won't cover the New York City hearings.
The House Judiciary Committee Republicans are warning of left-wing bias of C-SPAN after it had reportedly declined to set up a camera for Monday's field hearing on crime in New York City.

"Is @cspan the latest version of media bias?" the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account tweeted Saturday afternoon, linking to a story reporting on C-SPAN's cold shoulder to covering GOP-led congressional hearings.

The account has been questioning C-SPAN's original reasoning for not having a camera on the House Judiciary field hearing.

"I wanted to reach out to you as soon as I could to let you know that we won't be able [to] send a crew to cover the House Judiciary field hearing on Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan on Monday," C-SPAN assignment desk manager Jon Kelley wrote to the committee Wednesday, according to reports. "I know it is making a lot of news and we did look at possible coverage but we just don't have the resources at this time."

A House Judiciary Committee staffer responded incredulously to the email.

"Are you all serious?" the staffer fired back in an email, the New York Post reported. "It's the biggest hearing in Congress that I can think of."

Kelley replied in an email.

"I just wanted to let you know as soon as I could," he wrote.

But a Friday tweet exchange suggested C-SPAN is now planning to have a camera at the field hearing in Manhattan.


"This is a lie and hasn't been expressed directly to the committee," the House Judiciary GOP account tweeted in response to C-SPAN's claim it planned all along to have a camera there.


Media reports about the potential Monday snub by C-SPAN might have led to a change in available "resources," and the House Judiciary GOP prodding.


Unlike the recent Twitter-National Public Radio spat, C-SPAN notes on its website it "receives no government funding."

"Funding comes through license fees paid by television providers — the cable and satellite companies that offer C-SPAN to their customers as a public service — and through advertisements on our digital platforms," the FAQ page reads. "C-SPAN's mission is to provide our audience with access to the live, gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and to the other forums where public policy is discussed, debated and decided — all without editing, commentary or analysis, and with a balanced presentation of points of view."

But C-SPAN has already skipped the House GOP border field hearing in February, because of no "Dem members" in attendance, according to the Post.

This time, Democrats reportedly are going to attend the Manhattan field hearing on violent crime with plans to pivot the conversation to gun control, CBS News reported.

The House Judiciary GOP account posted a poll asking, "Who's worse: C-SPAN, NPR, or Joe Biden."


Biden dominated that poll at around 87%, while C-SPAN (5.1%) edged out NPR (7.7%) as being slightly less worse to respondents.

The House Judiciary GOP account has bashed C-SPAN for using resources on other Democrat-friendly endeavors this week



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Bad Guys

Fallout: Leaked Pentagon docs reveal Taiwan unready for China strike

Mary Kay Linge, Mark Moore and Matthew Sedacca
New York Post
Sat, 15 Apr 2023 18:58 UTC
taiwan air force planes hanger pilots
© EPA/Ritchie B. TongoThe documents stated that only half of Taiwan’s aircraft would be “fully mission capable” in case of an attack from China.
Secret military documents reportedly included in the mass Discord leak posted by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira reveal critical weaknesses in Taiwan's air defenses.

The classified Pentagon assessments of the island nation's military readiness state that Taiwan officials themselves question their ability to "accurately detect missile launches" from China, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

US analysts found that only half of Taiwan's aircraft would be "fully mission capable" in the event of a Chinese attack — and suggested that Beijing could successfully control Taiwan's airspace if it chose to invade.

Last week, three days of Chinese "combat readiness patrols" signaled a warning to independent Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

Here's what we know about Jack Teixeira and the leaked docs

Comment: Someone high up in the DOD knows Ukraine is going down the drain, and that taking on China is suicide. Given the stranglehold the Deep State has on the media, this may have seems the only way to get the true picture out. Mr. Teixeira is the unfortunate fall guy in this operation.

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Control Panel

Enslavement of African migrants 'big business' in Libya thanks to EU funding - UN

Alexander Rubinstein
The Grey Zone
Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00 UTC
Ursula
An investigation by the United Nations has concluded that money provided by the European Union to state entities in Libya has facilitated an array of crimes against humanity ranging from forced labor and sexual slavery to torture.

Through its financial support of the Libyan Coast Guard and the Libyan Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM), the European Union has aided and abetted crimes against humanity, according to a recent UN report.

On March 27, 2023, the United Nations released the findings of a three-year investigation, confirming that "arbitrary detention, murder, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance" has become a "widespread practice" in the once-prosperous nation of Libya, which was plunged into civil war by NATO's regime change war over a decade ago.

While crimes against humanity were found to be widespread throughout the country, the report homed in on the plight of migrants and blamed the European Union for enabling the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity to enact abuses against Africans seeking asylum in Europe.

Comment: See also:

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Black Magic

Hacking Humanity: Transhumanism

Michael Rectenwald
Mises Institute
Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00 UTC
transhumanism
[This piece is an excerpt from The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty.]

The notion that the world can be replicated and replaced by a simulated reality says a great deal about the beliefs of those who promote the metaverse [treated in the previous chapter]. The conception is materialist and mechanistic at base, the hallmarks of social engineering. It represents the world as consisting of nothing but manipulable matter, or rather, of digital media mimicking matter. It suggests that human beings can be reduced to a material substratum and can be induced to accept a technological reproduction in lieu of reality. Further, it assumes that those who inhabit this simulacrum can be controlled by technocratic means. Such a materialist, mechanistic, techno-determinist, and reductionist worldview is consistent with the transhumanist belief that humans themselves will soon be succeeded by a new transhuman species, or humanity-plus (h+) — perhaps a genetically and AI-enhanced cyborg that will outstrip ordinary humans and make the latter virtually obsolete.

Comment: See the MindMatters interview with author: MindMatters: The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty with Michael Rectenwald

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Better Earth

Former US Treasury Sec warns of 'troubling' signs US is losing global influence as other world powers band together


Bloomberg
Fri, 14 Apr 2023 14:01 UTC
Lawrence Summers
© Dennis Brack / DanitaDelimont.com / Legion-MediaFormer Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned of "troubling" signs that the US is losing global influence as other powers align together and win favor among nations not yet aligned.

"There's a growing acceptance of fragmentation, and — maybe even more troubling — I think there's a growing sense that ours may not be the best fragment to be associated with," Summers said on Bloomberg Television's "Wall Street Week" with David Westin.

Summers was speaking on the sidelines of the spring meeting of global finance chiefs in Washington, where the key theme has been a warning about "fragmentation" of the world economy as the US and rich-world allies aim to reshape supply chains away from China and other strategic competitors.

Comment: See also: The IMF's punitive loan system makes struggling countries poorer, it must end

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Newspaper

Wagner chief calls on Putin to declare end of war to 'gain firm foothold' on held territories

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sat, 15 Apr 2023 18:00 UTC
Wagner
Russia's Wagner Group posing in central Bakhmut.
Head of Russia's most prominent mercenary firm Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has issued an unexpected call for the Kremlin to declare an end of the war in order to consolidate territory already gained.

A Friday statement by Prigozhin released by his press service suggested it's time to declare 'victory' and to focus on fully establishing Russian control over the occupied territories of Ukraine.

"For the authorities [of the Russian Federation - ed.] and for society as a whole, it is necessary to put some kind of bold full stop in the 'special military operation'," the Wagner chief said

Comment: Whilst it is indeed true that Russia has neutralised, in one way or another, hundreds of thousands of fighting age Ukrainian males, those who were willing to sacrifice themselves in the Nazi aligned military for the Western establishment's agenda, whether 'denazification', one of Russia's stated objectives of the SMO, has really been achieved, remains to be seen. The only worthwhile report on the progress of the operation will come from Russia's elected representatives.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, it seems willing military conscripts are thin on the ground:



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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: NewsReal: What Collapsing US World Order? Bidens Holiday in Ireland as Macron Points EU East


Sott.net
Sun, 16 Apr 2023 23:33 UTC
biden macron China newsreal
© Sott.net
Never mind all the signs of US economic woes and collapsing Western hegemony, Joe Biden took his 'artistic' son on a 5-day trip to Ireland, where the natives gave them a better reception than they would receive anywhere in the US.

Meanwhile, Macron is received with full state honors in China, Pentagon leaks reveal (among other things) a growing rift between the US and Israel, Middle East peace moves are freaking out Washington, and another string of industrial 'accidents' hits the US.

Join Joe & Niall as they assess recent tectonic shifts in the changing world order!


Running Time: 01:44:16

Download: MP3 — 71.6 MB

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Bad Guys

Former intel officers: America's allies 'can't trust us' after 'disaster' intelligence leak

Natasha Turak and Dan Murphy
CNBC
Fri, 14 Apr 2023 19:42 UTC
pentagon building leaks ukraine
© Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Group/Getty ImagesAmerica’s control over its most valuable secrets has been thrust into question after the April 2023 leaks.
An embarrassing leak of highly classified Pentagon documents has endangered intelligence methods, exposed American strategy and undermined trust among U.S. allies, former defense department officials and intelligence experts tell CNBC.

U.S. authorities on Thursday arrested 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a low-ranking member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, in connection with the investigation into the leak.

America's control over its most valuable secrets has been thrust into question amid the fallout from the most damaging intelligence leak since Edward Snowden's breach more than a decade ago.

"It's hard to trust us with your secrets if we can't protect them," said Bill Lynn, a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Barack Obama, who now serves as Chief Executive of Leonardo DRS.

Comment: Much scepticism has been expressed over the ability of a lowly National Guardsman's ability to access such high level information. A controlled release is much more likely, with someone much higher up slipping the documents to a patsy, to get some of the truth out about the real situation in Ukraine:

Larry Johnson holds forth:


Scott Ritter:


For those who have more time::



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